


Ash and Dust

by SgtSarcastic



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout 76
Genre: Appalachia, F/F, F/M, Fallout 4 References, Fallout:New Vegas References, Opposite Attract?, definitely big battle scenes, past and future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 00:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtSarcastic/pseuds/SgtSarcastic
Summary: "We thought that would be different. We thought that everything would be different."The Responders had been there since the beginning. They were one of the first factions formed after the Great War, destined to help anyone and everyone they could. In 2088, with the Scorched plague gone rampant and an immense battle with the Brotherhood of Steel on the horizon, things aren't looking up for the team of former cops, firefighters, and paramedics. Would a chance encounter with a thieving ghoul save their lives, or ruin them forever?





	Ash and Dust

Nobody really told the kids how the world ended. Even with the death seen on the daily, they were a collective object meant to be protected at all costs, for as long as possible. I think maybe we had hope that they’d fix the world that the prior generations had fucked to hell and back. So we raised them, taught them how to fight back against the disgusting monsters hiding in the shadows. But we never expected that humanity’s own monstrosities would get worse. We never expected that maybe some of the monsters could be saved.  


The recorder emitted a soft whir as I ejected the holotape, quickly labeling it with a close to dead market and tossing it into the cardboard box underneath my desk. A sigh escaped me as I pushed my chair back and stood, pausing for a moment to look around the room. My housing assignment was on the south side of Flatwoods, allotted to me as soon as I was taken in by the Responders when I was only thirteen, and I had lived there since. It was hard for any of to believe that it had only been ten years since the world went to hell. It seemed like it would be one of those great big traumas in life that would be clear as day every time it slipped back into the forefront of your mind, but instead it became even further encased in fog every time I recounted it. Instead, living in the once breathtaking, now hellhole, called Appalachia became the trauma of every day as more lives were lost to the heinous creatures that walked its irradiated earth. The scorched plague had begun to take over in recent years, and on top of the feral ghouls, it left us finding fewer and fewer people – who were still, well, people – each year.  


My eyes lingered on the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen table for a short moment as I walked out the door. Even the small things like that were worshipped as treasures of the Old World, simple reminders of what everything could have been. But the future is more important now. I figured that if I told myself that enough times I’d eventually believe it.  


The mess hall was on the northern end of the town. I followed the streets to get there, not even having to think twice of it as I had completed the journey so many times. The morning haze, tinged pale green, discolored the horizon and the dewy grass left droplets of water on my boots. It was times like this when I felt like I could finally take a breath. A minuscule moment of peace when there were no raiders to defend from, no scorched to track down. Then the calm faded just as quickly as it had come.  


Kesha McDermott and Scott Sheppard were standing in front of the dilapidated restaurant, caught in the middle of some argument. Scott seemed panicked in his own, crazy, elderly man way, while Kesha was trying to calm him down. Her frantic eyes met mine, her expression turning over to relief.  


“Colonel, could you talk some sense into Mister Sheppard here?” The phrase sounded more like a plea than the question it was intended to be. McDermott was always kind, but given that she was a former high school teacher, she didn’t ever take anyone’s crap. The metal armor clad to her arms and legs certainly took away from the motherly vibe and made her more intimidating than she usually was. Before I could get a word into the conversation, Sheppard burst into a frenzied monologue about how a scorched had broken into the kitchen and were culpable for the small amounts of food that had been going missing over the past few weeks. It sounded about as likely as his theory that aliens were the ones who dropped the nukes. After Sheppard had gone on for a minute or two, McDermott discreetly motioned for me to follow her, and so I allowed her to lead me through the mess hall and back into the kitchen. At the back was the storage room, which held an industrial-sized freezer, which had broken years ago, along with shelves of assorted boxed and canned Pre-War foods, and crates of fresh silt beans, corn, and tomatoes. Rations were put in place nearly three years prior, so since then, every morsel of food was kept track of closely. A chalkboard hug on the freezer door displayed how much was left of each item, and the dates that supply runs were to be made, about once every two weeks. As I stood in the entryway, a glimmer of metal caught my eye as a can on the ground caught my eye. I crouched to pick it up, my nose wrinkling slightly as I read the words “Imitation Seafood” on the label, then placed it back up on its allotted shelf. I counted 29 cans of the processed fish. The board said there were supposed to be 30.  


“Couldn’t be rats, could it?” I suggested half-heartedly, hoping that there was some evidence of rodent activity. As McDermott shook her head, a frown settled on my lips. “I’ll ask the kids if they know anything about this. Although, I dunno why they’d be stealing Imitation Seafood when there’s twenty boxed of snack cakes right here.” I made my point by tapping one of the dirty pink boxes, only a shelf below the fish, with my finger.  


“That’s what I thought,” she replied with a stern nod. She glanced around the kitchen, then over the counter out at the dining area, then turned back to me with a lowered voice. “Would you mind stayin’ here tonight? I’ll take one of your shifts or throw you an extra sweet roll or somethin’. I just wanna make sure there’s no truth to what Sheppard was going on about.” The thought of something inhuman creeping into the building, especially while I was sleeping there, sent a chill straight through me. However, I agreed, then followed McDermott out the door, pausing in the doorway to glance once more at the chalkboard.


End file.
